Software Engineering Job Trends in Cheshire

Software Engineering
North West > Cheshire

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in Cheshire requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 17 14
Rank change year-on-year -4 -3 +16
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 86 102 83
As % of all permanent jobs in Cheshire 4.69% 12.75% 8.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 7.29% 14.27% 11.53%
Number of salaries quoted 69 19 59
10th Percentile £56,250 £55,900 £32,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £67,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.70% +22.73% -27.32%
75th Percentile £76,250 £84,250 £60,000
90th Percentile £89,000 £100,000 £64,000
North West median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £57,000
% change year-on-year - +22.81% -8.80%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Cheshire

Software Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in Cheshire.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,179 715 720
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Cheshire 64.32% 89.38% 74.46%
Number of salaries quoted 869 348 403
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,675 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £34,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £48,720 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% +2.57% -1.04%
75th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £57,854
90th Percentile £75,000 £75,300 £68,484
North West median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £51,712
% change year-on-year +10.00% -3.31% -5.98%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in Cheshire

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Software Engineering relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in Cheshire.

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in Cheshire

Software Engineering
Salary Trend in Cheshire

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Software Engineering.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Salary Histogram in Cheshire

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in Cheshire over the 6 months to 12 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Engineering in Cheshire

Software Engineering
Job Locations in Cheshire

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Software Engineering within the Cheshire region over the 6 months to 12 October 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Warrington +1 22 £65,000 - 6
Knutsford +6 17 £88,750 +18.33% 15
Runcorn +2 13 £70,000 - 1
Chester -12 7 £43,250 -27.92% 6
Nantwich - 6 £60,000 -
Widnes +7 5 £60,000 -
Crewe 0 4 £72,500 - 1
Macclesfield -6 4 £65,000 +30.00% 2
Alderley Edge - 4 £85,000 -
Winsford -5 2 £70,000 -
Neston - 2 - -
Software Engineering
North West

Software Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Cheshire by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Business Applications
1 2 (2.33%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 12 (13.95%) Azure
2 10 (11.63%) AWS
3 7 (8.14%) SaaS
4 6 (6.98%) Azure AI
4 6 (6.98%) Microsoft Copilot
5 5 (5.81%) Anthropic Claude
5 5 (5.81%) Azure Cognitive Services
6 3 (3.49%) Amazon Bedrock
6 3 (3.49%) Amazon EC2
6 3 (3.49%) Amazon S3
6 3 (3.49%) AWS Lambda
6 3 (3.49%) GCP
6 3 (3.49%) Serverless
7 2 (2.33%) Power Platform
8 1 (1.16%) ChatGPT
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.33%) Bluetooth
1 2 (2.33%) TCP/IP
1 2 (2.33%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (2.33%) Wireless
1 2 (2.33%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.49%) Amazon RDS
1 3 (3.49%) MariaDB
1 3 (3.49%) MySQL
2 2 (2.33%) NoSQL
2 2 (2.33%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 5 (5.81%) Claude Code
General
1 8 (9.30%) Finance
2 6 (6.98%) Electronics
2 6 (6.98%) Social Skills
3 3 (3.49%) Aviation
4 2 (2.33%) Law
4 2 (2.33%) Legal
4 2 (2.33%) Manufacturing
4 2 (2.33%) Police
4 2 (2.33%) Presentation Skills
5 1 (1.16%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (1.16%) Banking
5 1 (1.16%) Legal Technology
5 1 (1.16%) Pharmaceutical
5 1 (1.16%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 44 (51.16%) Software Engineer
2 28 (32.56%) Senior
3 19 (22.09%) Senior Software Engineer
4 14 (16.28%) Developer
5 11 (12.79%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 9 (10.47%) Embedded Engineer
6 9 (10.47%) Embedded Software Engineer
6 9 (10.47%) Engineering Manager
7 7 (8.14%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
7 7 (8.14%) Full-Stack Engineer
7 7 (8.14%) JavaScript Engineer
7 7 (8.14%) Senior Embedded Engineer
7 7 (8.14%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
8 6 (6.98%) C# Software Engineer
8 6 (6.98%) PLC Engineer
8 6 (6.98%) PLC Software Engineer
8 6 (6.98%) Senior Developer
9 5 (5.81%) Lead
10 4 (4.65%) Development Engineer
10 4 (4.65%) Electronics Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (15.12%) .NET
2 8 (9.30%) React
3 5 (5.81%) Model Context Protocol
4 4 (4.65%) Node.js
5 3 (3.49%) Nuxt
5 3 (3.49%) REST
5 3 (3.49%) RESTful
6 1 (1.16%) .NET Core
6 1 (1.16%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 6 (6.98%) Distributed Systems
2 4 (4.65%) Onboarding
3 3 (3.49%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (2.33%) Embedded Systems
4 2 (2.33%) Life Science
4 2 (2.33%) Renewable Energy
5 1 (1.16%) AI Agents
5 1 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.16%) FMCG
5 1 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.16%) Mobile Banking
5 1 (1.16%) Public Cloud
5 1 (1.16%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 2 (2.33%) Embedded Linux
1 2 (2.33%) FreeRTOS
1 2 (2.33%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 21 (24.42%) AI
2 14 (16.28%) CI/CD
3 13 (15.12%) Problem-Solving
4 11 (12.79%) Data Science
4 11 (12.79%) Full-Stack Development
5 10 (11.63%) DevOps
5 10 (11.63%) TDD
6 9 (10.47%) Agile
6 9 (10.47%) Cybersecurity
6 9 (10.47%) Mentoring
6 9 (10.47%) Microservices
7 7 (8.14%) API Integration
7 7 (8.14%) Business Strategy
7 7 (8.14%) Continuous Improvement
7 7 (8.14%) User Experience
8 6 (6.98%) Computer Science
8 6 (6.98%) People Management
9 5 (5.81%) Scrum
9 5 (5.81%) Software Architecture
9 5 (5.81%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 29 (33.72%) C#
2 15 (17.44%) TypeScript
3 12 (13.95%) Python
4 11 (12.79%) JavaScript
4 11 (12.79%) SQL
5 2 (2.33%) C
5 2 (2.33%) C++
5 2 (2.33%) Go
5 2 (2.33%) Java
6 1 (1.16%) Kotlin
6 1 (1.16%) PowerShell
6 1 (1.16%) Rust
Qualifications
1 6 (6.98%) Degree
2 2 (2.33%) Azure Certification
2 2 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
2 2 (2.33%) DBS Check
2 2 (2.33%) Microsoft Certification
3 1 (1.16%) AWS Certification
3 1 (1.16%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
3 1 (1.16%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (2.33%) QA
System Software
1 4 (4.65%) Firmware
2 3 (3.49%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (2.33%) Kubernetes
2 1 (1.16%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 9 (10.47%) Microsoft
2 4 (4.65%) OpenAI
3 3 (3.49%) Google
4 1 (1.16%) Brio